Pattern fills for shapes are two-color designs comprising lines,
dots, dashes and checks. PowerPoint includes 48 patterns such patterns
with names like Plaid, Weaves, Shingle and Zig Zag. Pattern fills for
shapes are not included within the Shape fill drop-down
gallery in
PowerPoint 2013.
But you can find this option buried within the Format ShapeTask Pane.
In this tutorial, we'll show you how you can access Pattern fill options:

If you want to see a sample presentation showing pattern fills in PowerPoint,
scroll down to the bottom of this page.

Alternatively, if you want to start from scratch, launch PowerPoint. Most of the time,
PowerPoint will open with a new slide in a presentation -- you can
change the slide
layout to Blank by selecting the Home tab | Layout
| Blank. Then, insert
a shape and select it.

Right-click the selected shape, and from the context menu that appears, choose the
Format Shape option as shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1: Format Shape option selected

This opens the Format ShapeTask Pane that you can see
in Figure 2. Make sure that the Fill tab is
selected (highlighted in red within
Figure 2), then select the Pattern fill
radio button (highlighted in blue within
Figure 2).

Figure 2: Pattern gallery within Format Shape Task Pane

You can see the Pattern gallery on the lower half of the Format Shape
Task Pane, shown highlighted in green within in
Figure 2, above.

Choose any of the pattern styles. Figure 2 above shows that we
selected a pattern named Divot. You can select any pattern all the
way from 5% to Solid diamonds.

Whichever pattern you choose, you can then change the Foreground and Background
colors for the pattern using the Foreground and
Background color buttons that you can see in
Figure 2 above. When you click any of these buttons
you can see the Colors drop-down gallery as shown in Figure 3.

Figure 3: Colors drop-down gallery

This drop-down gallery will work in the same way as it does for
solid
fills (this link takes you to one of our previous tutorials). If you don't want to change
the Foreground and Background colors, just accept the default color values that
PowerPoint uses.

Once the pattern is selected and colors are changed, you can see the
previously selected shape with the pattern fill, as shown in
Figure 4.

Have your ever used keyboard shortcuts and sequences in PowerPoint? Or are you a complete keyboard aficionado? Do you want to learn about some new shortcuts? Or do you want to know if your favorite keyboard shortcuts are documented?